Pope to skip Notre Dame opening in Paris for Corsica visit

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis will visit the French Mediterranean island of Corsica in December, days after skipping the reopening of Paris's Notre Dame Cathedral which was ravaged by a fire in 2019, the Vatican said on Saturday.

Francis, 87, declined an invitation from French President Emmanuel Macron to attend the Notre Dame reopening ceremony in Paris on December 7.

He will however head to Corsica's capital Ajaccio for a conference on the Catholic faith in the Mediterranean one week later on December 15, the Vatican said.

Some French bishops were "annoyed" by the Pope's decision to stay away from the Notre Dame gala, according to one bishop speaking on condition of anonymity.

But the head of the Bishops' Conference of France (CEF) Archbishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort said: "The star of the Notre Dame reopening ceremony is Notre Dame itself."

The Pope had not wanted his presence to be a distraction from the essential point of the occasion, he added.

"It's not a snub aimed at France," said another bishop.

Francis's one-day trip to Corsica will be the first papal visit to the island, where 90 percent of its 350,000 population is Catholic, according to the local Church, and religious traditions remain deeply rooted.

He will give two speeches, preside over a mass and meet Macron during his nine hours on the island, the Vatican said.

"It is a historic event, we will give ourselves the extraordinary means to put on an exceptional welcome for the Holy Father," said Bishop of Ajaccio Francois-Xavier Bustillo said in a video posted on social media.

Francis, who will celebrate his 88th birthday on December 17, has been to France twice since becoming head of the worldwide Catholic Church in 2013.

He visited Strasbourg in 2014, where he addressed the European Parliament, and last year went to Marseille for a meeting of Mediterranean area bishops, where he met Macron.

He has yet to make a state visit to France, one of Europe's main majority-Catholic countries. He is also yet to make state visits to Spain, the United Kingdom or Germany.

The Argentine pontiff prefers visiting smaller or less established Catholic communities, from Malta to Mongolia.

'A moment of hope'

The Corsica visit was championed by the popular media-friendly Bustillo, who was made a cardinal by Pope Francis in September 2023.

"It will not be a state visit, but a pastoral visit. It will be a beautiful moment, a moment of hope and joy," he told AFP.

In addition, the head of the Catholic Church is scheduled to be at the Vatican on December 7-8 for a service at which he will create 21 new cardinals.

Rescheduling appointments over coming months would appear to be tricky, given the multitude of events due to take place in Rome in 2025, a Catholic jubilee year.

Bustillo is one of the active cardinals Francis has appointed in the Mediterranean region, with the pope keen they "work together to meet the specific challenges of the area", a bishop told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Those issues include migration, global warming and interreligious dialogue.

Corsica will be the 47th overseas visit for Francis and his third this year, after a long tour of the Asia Pacific in early September and a trip to Belgium and Luxembourg the same month.